Frontier buys Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters developer

Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster company Frontier Developments has snapped up Complex Games, the studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters.

It's the first time the British-based Frontier has acquired a development studio, albeit one which the company has worked with in the past. The well-received Daemonhunters arrived in May this year as part of Frontier's own third-party games label.

Frontier has paid £8.3m upfront, with a further £3.3m due over the next year if milestones are met.

The 20-person strong Complex Games, based in Winnipeg, Canada, will now continue to work on Daemonhunters while next looking to build "even more ambitious future titles", a press release on the acquisition stated today.

"Our experience with Complex Games on Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters has been terrific," Frontier boss Jonny Watts stated. "This is Frontier's first acquisition and we will continue to explore opportunities to grow Frontier's resources to further develop and nurture our portfolio."

Frontier has its own Warhammer game due to launch in 2023 - an Age of Sigmar real-time strategy title which it quietly delayed early this year.

Otherwise, Frontier has been keeping busy over the past few years developing Jurassic World Evolution 2 and F1 Manager 2022, as well as continuing development of Elite Dangerous and Plant Zoo.

As for Daemonhunters, Edwin declared it to be a "brutal but graceful and comprehensible mix of ideas from Warhammer, XCOM and Gears Tactics", and recommended it in Eurogamer's Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters review.